Saturday, 2 March 2013

Sew Over It

Last week I finished my first dress-making class! I've been wanting to sew a dress for myself for a few years now, and I have some patterns, but I'm always so intimidated by patterns and sewing terms I'm not familiar with that when it comes to actually doing it, I end up setting it aside and working on something else. I even had a "how to read a pattern" one on one session with someone a few months ago to help me get started, and I STILL felt intimidated to get started. I've made a few dresses for Lois, but girls dresses are quite easy in that they don't really have to fit well anywhere beyond the shoulders. So if you mess up a little, it hardly matters. And the dresses I've made for her were incredibly easy.

So, I decided it was time for a class! I first read about Sew Over It in Mollie Makes (where I get so much great crafty information these days), and I was happy to see it was so close to our neighborhood. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it before. It is part shop and part sewing lounge, and it's ALL adorable. The shop is decorated in hot pink and blue and filled with fabric, buttons, and various sewing supplies upstairs and then downstairs is a sewing lounge. The sewing lounge is for classes and for renting machines by the hour to work on a project individually.

For my dress, I decided to take the shift dress class. I chose this really cute Liberty fabric. Cake and tea were provided, and there was plenty of space for everyone. Each sewing machine had a name (which I thought was very cute, mine was Maisie). Our teacher, Dominique, did a great job explaining things and keeping everyone on track. The class was spread over 2 weeks, 1 night each week, and 3 hours each class. So it took 6 hours total to make this dress. I learned how to do many things I'd only read about, like how to sew darts (to make the bust area look like a bust), learned to sew in facing (to make the neckline neat and lie flat), and learned to use a serger (to finish the seams neatly). I'm looking forward to taking another class and making this dress again!

Me in my dress! This was about 11pm, after class, in my bathroom, so not the best shot, and I'd like a different belt but need to buy one for this, but here's the finished dress. I chose to do the short sleeves for summer, but this can also be made with 3 quarter length sleeves. I'm so happy I made an actual dress!!